In Kondratiev, Sasha is a summary. Vyacheslav Kondratiev - Sasha. From the history of the creation of the story

V. Kondratiev - the story "Sasha". In the center of the narrative of V. Kondratiev is the image of a young fighter, a simple Russian guy Sashka. He has been fighting for only two months, but he has already managed to get used to everything that is happening, to machine-gun bursts, explosions: “he suffered and realized that the war was not like what they imagined ...”. The hero thinks about simple, vital, soldierly things: “It’s bad with bread. No Navaru. A half-pot of liquid millet for two - and be healthy. Mudslide!" All the attention of the writer is drawn in the story not to heroic deeds and feats, but to the soldier's life. Following the tradition of L.N. Tolstoy, Kondratiev depicts war as hard, everyday work, as a craft that still needs to be mastered. In the story, the writer expressed what can be called "the deepest ... tragic prosaism of the war" (I. Dedkov).

In this harsh, everyday work, Sasha's character, his inner world is revealed. We see a brave, reliable guy, simple-hearted, fair, conscientious. Here he gets boots for the company commander. Then he takes a German prisoner. This episode vividly characterizes the hero. There is no hatred for this man in Sasha's soul. “He seemed to be Sashkin of the same age, twenty or twenty-two years old. Snub-nosed and freckled, looking downright Russian.” “And then Sasha realized what a terrible power he now had over the German. After all, from his every word or gesture, he either dies, or enters into hope. He, Sasha, is now free over the life and death of another person. If he wants, he will bring him to the headquarters alive, if he wants, he will slam on the road! Sasha even somehow felt uneasy ... And the German, of course, understands that he is completely in Sasha's hands. And what they told him about the Russians, God only knows! Only the German does not know what kind of person Sashka is, that he is not the kind to mock the prisoner and the unarmed. The battalion commander orders Sasha to shoot the prisoner. However, he cannot fulfill this order, "we do not shoot prisoners", he cannot "kill the defenseless." The battalion commander subsequently cancels his order.

It vividly characterizes the hero and his behavior after being wounded. Wounded in the arm, Sasha nevertheless returned to the company to leave his weapon and say goodbye to his comrades. On the way to the hospital, he notices a wounded man. And he returns to the forest for him, because he gave the word to the “dying”. Thus, Sasha saves a man's life.

A whole gamut of feelings is experienced by the hero in the medical battalion. This is the joy of meeting Zina, indignation towards the senior lieutenant, resentment about the staff party. Sasha forgives Zina and her betrayal. “Zina is incontestable. It’s just a war… And he has no ill will against her.” Here we see the moral maturity of the hero, he was able to rise above his feelings, acted like a real man.

In the finale, Sashka rescues Lieutenant Volodya, who threw a plate at a senior officer. The hero takes his guilt upon himself, realizing that it is easier for a private to answer for this than for an officer.

In the image of Sasha, the writer reveals to us a wonderful Russian character, a character shaped by time and embodied the features of his generation. The hero of Kondratiev is a man with a heightened moral sense, with firm convictions. K. Simonov remarkably said about this story: "The story of Sasha is the story of a man who found himself in the most difficult time in the most difficult position - a soldier."

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Sasha Kondratiev

“Sashka flew into the grove, shouting “Germans! Germans!” to forestall their own.” The commander ordered to move behind the ravine, lie down there and not a step back. The Germans by that time suddenly fell silent. And the company that took up the defense also fell silent in anticipation that a real battle was about to begin. Instead, a young and somehow triumphant voice began to fool them: “Comrades! In the areas liberated by the German troops, the sowing campaign begins. Freedom and work awaits you. Drop your weapons, let's smoke cigarettes..."

A few minutes later the commander figured out their game: it was reconnaissance. And then he gave the order "forward!".

Sashka, though for the first time in the two months that he fought, came across so close to a German, but for some reason he did not feel fear, but only anger and some kind of hunting rage.

And such luck: in the very first battle, a fool, he took the “language”. The German was young and snub-nosed. The company commander chatted with him in German and ordered Sashka to take him to headquarters. It turns out that Fritz did not say anything important to the company commander. And most importantly, the Germans outwitted us: while our soldiers listened to German chatter, the Germans left, taking a prisoner from us.

None of the commanders were at the battalion headquarters - everyone was called to the brigade headquarters. And they didn’t advise Sashka to go to the battalion commander, saying: “Yesterday our Katenka was killed. When they buried, it was scary to look at the battalion commander - everything turned black ... "

Sasha decided to go to the battalion commander anyway. That Sashka with the orderly ordered to leave. Only the voice of the battalion commanders was heard from the dugout, and the German seemed not to be there. Silence, infection! And then the battalion commander called to him and ordered: the Germans - at the expense. Sasha's eyes darkened. After all, he showed a leaflet, where it is written that the prisoners are provided with life and return to their homeland after the war! And yet - he had no idea how he would kill someone.

Sasha's objections pissed off the battalion commander even more. While talking to Sasha, he unambiguously laid his hand on the handle of the TT. The order ordered to fulfill, to report on the fulfillment. And the orderly Tolik was supposed to follow the execution. But Sasha couldn't kill an unarmed man. I couldn't, that's all!

In general, we agreed with Tolik that he would give him a watch from a German, but now that he left. But Sasha decided to take the German to the brigade headquarters. This is far and dangerous - they can even consider a deserter. But let's go...

And then, in the field, the battalion commander caught up with Sasha and Fritz. He stopped, lit a cigarette ... Only the minutes before the attack were just as terrible for Sasha. The captain's gaze met directly - well, shoot, but I'm right anyway ... And he looked sternly, but without malice. He finished his cigarette and, already leaving, threw: “Take the German to the headquarters of the brigade. I cancel my order."

Sashka and two other wounded from the walkers did not receive food for the road. Only prodattestats, which can be purchased only in Babin, twenty miles from here. Toward evening, Sashka and his fellow traveler Zhora realized that they couldn’t get to Babin today.

The hostess, to whom they knocked, let her spend the night, but she said there was nothing to feed. Yes, and themselves, while walking, they saw: the villages were in desolation. There are no cattle to be seen, no horses, and there is nothing to talk about technology. It will be hard for collective farmers to spring.

In the morning, waking up early, they did not linger. And in Babin, they learned from a lieutenant, also wounded in the arm, that the produkt was here in winter. And now they have been transferred to an unknown place. And they are nezhramshi for days! Lieutenant Volodya also went with them.

In the nearest village, they rushed to ask for food. Grandfather did not agree to give or sell food, but advised: to dig up potatoes in the field, which remained from autumn, and fry the cake. Grandfather allocated a frying pan and salt. And what seemed like inedible rot was now going down the throat for a sweet soul.

When they passed by the potato fields, they saw how other crippled people were swarming there, smoking fires. They are not alone, so they feed like that.

Sasha and Volodya sat down to smoke, and Zhora went ahead. And soon there was an explosion ahead. Where? Far from the front ... They rushed along the road. Zhora was lying ten paces away, already dead: apparently, he turned off the road behind a snowdrop ...

By the middle of the day we reached the evacuation hospital. They registered them, sent them to the bathhouse. I would have stayed there, but Volodya was eager to go to Moscow - to see his mother. Sasha also decided to hit the road home, not far from Moscow.

On the way to the village fed: it was not under the Germans. But it was still hard to go: after all, they trampled a hundred miles, and the wounded, and on such grub.

We had dinner at the next hospital. When dinner was brought, the materok went along the bunks. Two spoonfuls of porridge! For this annoying millet, Volodya had a big quarrel with his superiors, so much so that a complaint about him got to the special officer. Only Sasha took the blame. What is a soldier? They won’t send the advanced forward, but it’s all the same to return there. Only the special officer advised Sasha to get out as quickly as possible. But the doctors did not let Volodya go.

Sasha went back to the field, to make potato cakes for the road. The wounded were swarming there decently: the guys did not have enough grub. And waved to Moscow. He stood there on the platform, looked around. Will I wake up? People in civilian clothes, girls knocking with their heels... as if from another world.

But the more strikingly this calm, almost peaceful Moscow differed from what was on the front line, the more clearly he saw his work there ...

You have read the summary of Sasha's story. We invite you to visit the Summary section for other essays by popular writers.

Vyacheslav Leonidovich Kondratiev was born on October 30, 1920 in Poltava in the family of a railway engineer. From 1922 he lived in Moscow. In 1939 he entered the Moscow Road Institute, was drafted into the army, served in the Far East.

In 1942-1944 - at the front, participated in heavy protracted battles, including near Rzhev, was commissioned after being wounded. After the war, he worked as an artist, studied at the Polygraphic Institute (Department of artistic design of printed materials).

Kondratiev died in Moscow on September 23, 1993 (he committed suicide due to a serious illness).

The path to literature of Vyacheslav Leonidovich Kondratiev, like that of every great writer, turned out to be uniquely original.

Vyacheslav Leonidovich Kondratiev, a front-line writer, came to modern literature quite late, many years after the war.

When the Great Patriotic War began, he was in the Far East. On June 23, on the second day of the war, a queue of those who asked to be transferred to the active army lined up at the headquarters of the regiment. Kondratiev also stood in this line. Since December 1941, Kondratiev was at the front, and in 1942 he was near Rzhev, where the fighting was especially difficult, and our losses were especially numerous. After the second wound in 1943, he spent six months in the hospital and was demobilized due to disability.

He was a laborer of the war, an infantry sergeant, as part of the 132nd separate rifle brigade, he participated in a difficult, unsuccessful battle for our army near Rzhev; there, after the death of the company commander, he took command.

What must have been the strength of the young man's experiences if the memory of them made him take up a pen only at the age of fifty!

Later, Kondratiev said: “The first battle shocked me with its unpreparedness and complete disregard for the lives of soldiers. We went on the offensive without a single artillery shot, only in the middle of the battle two tanks came to our aid. The offensive bogged down, and we left half the battalion on the field.

And then I realized that the war was being waged and, apparently, would be waged with the same cruelty towards our own people, with which collectivization and the fight against "enemies of the people" were waged, that Stalin, not sparing people in peacetime, would not be the one more sorry for them in the war.

By education, a printing artist, after the end of the war, Kondratiev tried to describe his tragic life experience, but what he wrote did not satisfy him. Memories of the war years hit him in the late 50s. - later he said: “The seemingly distant years suddenly approached closely. I even smelled the smells of war at times.”

Vyacheslav Leonidovich wrote about the reasons for his late turning to writing as follows: “Many of my peers, who somehow loved literature, have long wanted to talk about the war ... I even turned around for a while near the Literary Institute, but for some reason I did not dare, although to show the selection committee was that. What stopped me, probably, was the discrepancy between what was written about the front and the war, what I personally saw on the front line ... And here are just “lieutenant prose” - stories by V. Bykov, Yu. real war, - touched me to the quick.

I made my first attempt to write something about Rzhev in 1960...”

But in order to understand how and what to write about the war, the writer needed another fourteen years.

Even the "lieutenant's prose" did not reflect what Kondratiev himself saw in the war.

“Apparently, each of the millions who fought had their own war. But it was my war that I did not find in the books. My war is the steadfastness and courage of soldiers and officers, this is a terrible infantry battle, these are wet trenches, this is also a shortage of shells and mines ... "

Like a fragment left in a wound, after many years, causing torment, leaves the body of a veteran, so military prose began to come out of Kondratiev's consciousness with mental pain.

At the age of fifty, he began to feverishly write his burning novels and short stories: “Sashka”, “Vacation for injury”, “Meetings on Sretenka”, “On the field of Ovsyannikovsky”, “Selizharovsky tract”, “Red Gate”, “Atone for blood” and "This forty-eight"...

All Rzhev notebooks (as Kondratyev once called his prose) are interconnected by numerous intertextual linkages. And the chronology, and the characters, and the events, and their worldview closely adjoin, intersect and form a single epic cycle.

The books “At the 105th Kilometer” tells about army service in the Far East, “Selizharovsky Trakt” - about the beginning of front-line life, “On the Ovsyannikovsky Field” and “Sashka” - the front line in the Rzhev region, frozen ground, swamps, spruce forests, half-starved existence between life and death at the limit of human strength, shelling, attacks, search for scouts, killed, wounded, prisoners.

Some surnames pass from chapter to chapter, stories grow one into another.

For example, at the end of the story “Sashka”, a wounded vacationer arrives in his native Moscow, in “Vacation for a Wound” he is in the capital. And “Victory Day in Chernov” closes everything: twenty years later, the surviving soldier returns to his military youth.

For Kondratiev, it was very valuable that the interest of young readers in his "Sasha" does not weaken.

The story "Sashka" was written in 1974 and could not get into print for five whole years.

Sashka, a career soldier, during the battle captures a German, his age, twenty - twenty-two years old. The company commander orders Sashka to take the prisoner to headquarters. The German is afraid that Sashka might shoot him on the way, but Sashka picks up our leaflet in German and shows it to the German, in which the German soldiers who surrendered are promised a well-fed life,

Das is propaganda…- grumbled the German.

Sasha was outraged. This is German propaganda, he argues, but we have the truth.

Sasha brings his prisoner to the battalion commander's dugout. The captain - the commander of the battalion is in grief: the day before, the nurse Katenka, his love, died. He is in an unbuttoned tunic, overgrown, with tangled hair and black circles around his eyes.

Sasha is tormented by a bad feeling. When he fought with the Germans, they were enemies for him, nonhumans. But now he had no malice towards the captive; he seemed to him the same soldier as himself, only dressed in a different uniform, fooled and deceived by Hitler. "That's why I could talk to him like a human being, take cigarettes, smoke together..."

Kondratiev does not utter any lofty words. And how beautiful his Sasha! He fights in the most difficult conditions, risks his life every minute, but did not become embittered, did not become hardened, retained his humanity even in inhumanly difficult circumstances. This is a remarkably pure soul. “Sashka has seen many, many deaths during this time - live up to a hundred years, you won’t see so much - but the price of human life has not diminished in his mind.”

The German taken by him does not want to say anything, does not answer the questions of the captain. Sasha understands this: the German took the oath, he is a soldier. And the captain orders Sasha:

The Germans are at an expense.

Sasha's eyes darkened. After all, the leaflets promised German soldiers who would be captured-life. And he, Sasha, promised ...

The German understood what awaited him.

Sashka led the German. The German's face turned grey, his lips were caked, his eyes were deathly longing.

He took out a Soviet leaflet from his pocket, which promised him life, and began to tear it into small pieces, muttering something at the same time.

But it's not nonsense, not propaganda in the leaflet, Sashka thinks. And the leaflet was written by people taller than the battalion commander. Sashka is leading a German to shoot, but he himself knows: “There is some kind of barrier or barrier in his soul, which he cannot cross.”

Finally, in a few words, the writer indicates three moral vectors that affect Sasha. Here it turns out that fundamentally new thing that Kondratiev brought to military prose: an unprecedentedly sharp formulation of moral questions. Never before in our literature has military duty collided with such force with universal morality, which forbids killing.

“For the first time in his entire service in the army, during the months of the front, Sasha encountered the habit of obeying unquestioningly and a terrible doubt about the justice and usefulness of what he was ordered to.

And there is a third thing that is intertwined with the rest: he cannot kill the defenseless. It can't, that's all!"

Sashka is playing for time, looking for a way out. And suddenly he sees: a tall figure of the captain looms in the distance. With even, unhurried steps, he walks straight towards them.

And a flash of a second flashed - well, what if ... now slap the German and run to the captain: “Your order has been fulfilled ...” And all confusion has been removed from the soul ... And, without even touching the machine gun, only turning a little towards the German, Sashka saw how he read this thought for a second, his eyes covered with a death veil, his Adam's apple came ...

Well, what will the battalion commander do? Will he force the German to threaten? There is such a thing in the charter - the commander is obliged to achieve the fulfillment of his order at all costs and, if necessary, to use weapons. Or just for not following the order, Sashka will be knocked out on the spot? ..

But Sashka did not wilt, did not lower his eyes, but, suddenly feeling how the feeling of his own rightness had grown stronger in him, he met the captain’s gaze directly, without fear, with a desperate determination not to yield

Kondratiev Vyacheslav Leonidovich.

To all who fought near Rzhev

alive and dead

this story is dedicated

By the evening, as the Germans shot back, it was time for Sasha to take over for the night post. At the edge of the grove, a rare hut for rest was stuck to the spruce, and next to it thickly laid spruce branches, so that you could sit when your legs went numb, but you had to watch without interruption.

The sector of Sashka's review is not small: from a wrecked tank that turns black in the middle of the field, and to Panov, a tiny village, completely defeated, but in no way reached by ours. And it’s bad that the grove in this place did not break off immediately, but slipped down with small undergrowth and shrubs. And even worse, about a hundred meters away, a hillock rose with a birch forest, although not frequent, but blocking the battlefield.

According to all military rules, it would be necessary to put forward a post on that hillock, but they were afraid - it was far from the company. If the German intercepts, you won’t get help, that’s why they did it here. The view, however, is unimportant, at night every stump or bush turns into a Fritz, but at this post no one was seen in a dream. You can’t say the same about others, they napped there.

Sasha got a useless partner, with whom he alternated at the post: either he has a prick there, or he itchs in another place. No, not a malingerer, apparently, really ill, and weakened from hunger, well, age is showing. Sashka is young, holding on, and whoever is from the reserve, in years, is the hardest.

Having sent him to the hut to rest, Sashka lit a cigarette carefully so that the Germans would not notice the light, and began to think how it would be more dexterous and safer for him to do his job now, before it got completely dark and the rockets did not shuffle very much in the sky, or at dawn?

When they advanced for days on Panovo, he noticed a dead German near that hillock, and felt boots were painfully good on him. Then it was not up to that, and the boots were neat and, most importantly, dry (the German was killed in the winter and he lay on the upper part, not soaked with water). Sashka himself does not need these felt boots, but a misfortune happened to his company commander on the way, when the Volga was crossed. He fell into a hole and scooped up his boots to the top. Began to shoot - in any! The narrow tops tightened in the cold, and no matter who helped the company commander, nothing came of it. And so go - you will immediately freeze your legs. They went down to the dugout, and there one soldier offered the company commander boots for a shift. I had to agree, cut the tops along the seam, so that the boots could be pulled off and exchanged. Since then, the company commander has been swimming in these felt boots. Of course, it was possible to pick up boots from the dead, but the company commander either disdains or does not want to wear boots, and the boots are either not in the warehouse, or simply there is no time to mess around with it.

Sashka noticed the place where Fritz lies, he even has a landmark: two fingers to the left of the birch, which is on the edge of the hill. You can still see this birch, maybe now you can get close? Life is like this - nothing can be postponed.

When his partner Sashkin shook himself in the hut, cleared his throat and seemed to fall asleep, Sashka smoked twice hastily for courage - whatever you say, but getting out onto the field, it blows cold - and, pulling the bolt of the machine gun to a combat platoon, he began to descend from the hillock, but what something stopped him ... It happens on the front end like a premonition, like a voice says: don't do this. So it was with Sasha in the winter, when the snowy trenches had not yet melted. He sat in one, shrank, froze in anticipation of the morning shelling, and suddenly ... the Christmas tree that grew in front of the trench fell on him, cut by a bullet. And Sasha felt uneasy, he waved from this trench to another. And when shelling in this very place a mine! If Sasha had stayed there, there would have been nothing to bury.

And now Sasha doesn't want to crawl to the German, and that's it! I'll put it off for the morning, he thought, and began to climb back.

And the night floated over the front lines, as usual ... Rockets splashed into the sky, scattered there with a bluish light, and then with a spike, already extinguished, they went down to the ground torn apart by shells and mines ... Sometimes the sky was cut through by tracers, sometimes silence was blasted by machine-gun bursts or distant artillery cannonade ... As usual ... Sashka was already used to this, got used to it and realized that the war was not like what they imagined in the Far East, when it rolled its waves across Russia, and they, sitting in the rear, were worried that there was a war going on for the time being them, and no matter how it completely passed, and then they would not do anything heroic, which they dreamed of in the evenings in a warm smoking room.

Yes, soon two months will blow ... And, enduring hourly from the Germans, Sashka has not yet seen near a living enemy. The villages that they took stood as if dead, there was no movement in them. Only flocks of nasty howling mines, rustling shells flew from there, and tracer threads stretched. From the living they saw only tanks, which, counterattacking, pearled on them, rumbling with engines and pouring machine-gun fire on them, and they rushed about on the then snowy field ... Well, our forty-fives yelped, drove away the Fritz.

Although Sasha thought about all this, he did not take his eyes off the field ... True, the Germans did not disturb them now, they got off with morning and evening mortar raids, well, the snipers were shooting, but it seems they are not going to attack. And why are they here, in this swamp lowland? Until now, water is being squeezed out of the earth. Until the roads are dry, the Germans are unlikely to trample, and by that time they should be replaced. How long can you be on the front?

About two hours later, a sergeant came with a check, treated Sasha to tobacco. We sat, smoked, chatted about this and that. The sergeant dreams of drinking all the time, he was spoiled in intelligence, they were more often served there. And only after the first offensive, Sasha's company got rich - three hundred grams each. They did not subtract the losses, they issued them according to the payroll. Before other offensives, they also gave, but only a hundred - and you won’t feel it. Yes, no time for vodka now ... It’s bad with bread. No Navaru. A half-pot of liquid millet for two - and be healthy. Thaw!

When the sergeant left, not for long until the end of Sasha's shift. Soon he woke up his partner, led him, sleepy, to his place, and himself into the hut. He put on a greatcoat over a quilted jacket, covered himself with his head and fell asleep ...

They slept here without waking up, but for some reason Sashka twice left sleep and once even got up to check on his partner - unreliable hurt. He did not sleep, but pecked with his nose, and Sashka patted him a little, shook him, because he was the eldest on duty, but he returned to the hut some kind of restless. Why did it happen? Something sucked. And he was even glad when his rest came to an end, when he took over the post - there is more hope for himself.

Dawn had not yet come, and the Germans suddenly stopped launching rockets - so, rarely, one or the other in different parts of the field. But this did not alert Sasha: he got tired of shooting all night, so they finished. It even suits him. Now he is to the German for felt boots and hit the road ...

He quickly reached the hillock, not very hiding, and to the birch, but here it was bad luck ... The distance of two fingers on the terrain of thirty meters turned around, and not a bush, not a hole of any kind - an open field. No matter how the German spotted! Here it’s on the belly, crawling ...

Sashka hesitated a little, wiped the sweat from his forehead ... For himself, he wouldn’t have climbed for anything, damn these boots! But it's a pity for the commander. His pims were soaked through with water - and they couldn’t dry out over the summer, but here he puts on dry ones and walks around in dry ones until he gets boots from the warehouse ... Well, he wasn’t!

Without stopping, Sashka crawled to the German, buried himself behind him, looked around and took up his boots. Pulled, but does not come out! The fact that he had to touch a dead body did not bother him - they got used to the corpses. Scattered throughout the grove, they no longer look like people. In winter, their faces are not the color of the deceased, but orange, just like dolls, and therefore Sasha did not disdain very much. And now, although it is spring, their faces have remained the same - reddish.

In general, while lying down, it was impossible to remove the felt boots from the corpse, I had to get up on my knees, but it doesn’t work out either, the whole Fritz reaches for his felt boots, so what to do? But then Sashka realized to put his foot on the German and try it like that. The felt boot began to give way, and when it started to move, it already went ... So, there is one.

The sky in the east turned yellow a little, but it was still far from the real dawn - so, something was barely beginning to be seen around. The Germans completely stopped launching rockets. Nevertheless, before taking on the second felt boot, Sasha looked around. Everything seems to be calm, you can shoot. He took off and crawled quickly to the hillock, and from there, among the aspens and bushes, you can safely grow up to your hut.

As soon as Sasha thought it, how it howled over his head, rustled, and then explosions rumbled all over the grove, and it went ... The Germans started something a little early today. Why would it?

From the hillock he slid into a lowland and lay down under a bush. There is no need to return to the grove now, everything there is in a rumble, cod, in smoke and burning, but the Germans do not hit here. Again I thought: it was not without reason that they started at such an early hour, and the shelling of the big mines burst one after another, in batches, as if some hefty machine-gunner was scribbling a line. And suddenly attack, bastards, thought up? This thought burned, but made Sasha look both ways. In the grove, now, under such shelling, everyone was pressed into the ground, they were not up to observation.

To all who fought near Rzhev

alive and dead

this story is dedicated

When his partner Sashkin shook himself in the hut, cleared his throat and seemed to fall asleep, Sashka smoked twice hastily for courage - whatever you say, but getting out onto the field, it blows cold - and, pulling the bolt of the machine gun to a combat platoon, he began to descend from the hillock, but what something stopped him... It happens on the front end like a premonition, like a voice says: don't do this. So it was with Sasha in the winter, when the snowy trenches had not yet melted. He sat in one, huddled up, froze in anticipation of the morning shelling, and suddenly ... the Christmas tree that grew in front of the trench fell on him, cut by a bullet. And Sasha felt uneasy, he waved from this trench to another. And when shelling in this very place a mine! If Sasha had stayed there, there would have been nothing to bury.

And now Sasha doesn't want to crawl to the German, and that's it! I'll put it off for the morning, he thought, and began to climb back.

And the night floated over the front line, as usual ... Rockets splashed into the sky, scattered there with a bluish light, and then, with a spike, already extinguished, went down to the earth torn apart by shells and mines ... Sometimes the sky was cut through by tracers, sometimes machine-gun bursts blew silence or a distant artillery cannonade ... As usual ... Sashka was already used to this, got used to it and realized that the war was unlike what they imagined in the Far East, when it rolled its waves across Russia, and they, sitting in the rear , worried that the war was going on so far past them, and no matter how it passed completely, and then they would not do anything heroic, which they dreamed of in the evenings in a warm smoking room.

Yes, it will be blowing for two months soon... And, enduring every hour from the Germans, Sashka has not yet seen a living enemy near him. The villages that they took stood as if dead, there was no movement in them. Only flocks of nasty howling mines, rustling shells flew from there, and tracer threads stretched. From the living they saw only tanks, which, counterattacking, perleyed at them, rumbling with engines and pouring machine-gun fire on them, and they rushed about on the then snow-covered field ... Well, our forty-fives yelped, drove away the Fritz.

About two hours later, a sergeant came with a check, treated Sasha to tobacco. We sat, smoked, chatted about this and that. The sergeant dreams of drinking all the time, he was spoiled in intelligence, they were more often served there. And only after the first offensive, Sasha's company got rich - three hundred grams each. They did not subtract the losses, they issued them according to the payroll. Before other offensives, they also gave, but only a hundred - and you won’t feel it. Yes, no time for vodka now ... It's bad with bread. No Navaru. A half-pot of liquid millet for two - and be healthy. Thaw!

When the sergeant left, not for long until the end of Sasha's shift. Soon he woke up his partner, led him, sleepy, to his place, and himself into the hut. He put on his greatcoat over his quilted jacket, covered himself with his head and fell asleep...